"The Czech mezzo... produces one of the loveliest sounds to be heard on the world's stages - a flowing, spring-water-like tone that evokes the term 'luminous'." (Opera News)

Magdalena Koená explores the early Italian Baroque music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries with rewarding results. Inspired by the improvisational nature of much of this music, Koená reveals yet another aspect of her musical personality. Teamed with the six string-instrumentalists and percussion of the acclaimed consort group Private Musicke, Magdalena Koená delivers an album in a fascinatingly different setting from any of her previous Baroque recordings. In music ranging from simple lamento to rollicking dance tunes, Magdalena Koená unleashes her refined vocal and expressive abilities to convey every nuance implicit in the music and the texts.

"She soars the heights and plumbs the depths with fitting ardour . . . it is hard not to be swept away by such intensely felt and highly dramatic readings . . . Pierre Pitzl -- a veritable Jimi Hendrix of the Baroque guitar -- and his crack instrumental ensemble enrich the spare simplicity of the written scores with endlessly varied and inventive realisations on bowed and plucked strings. These are vibrant, virtuoso performances, never slacking in their spontaneity and energy. With its plus recorded sound, this is a disc to wallow in." -BBC Music Magazine